I can offer "a bit" of advice if you like
Hi Max, I just got home. I am so blown away by the amount of information you provided, it has really opened my eyes to the whole process as many of the questions you were asking me I realised I didn't know the answer to them myself.
First of all, Thank you. I have been stressing out so much about doing this project because I know i'm not educated enough to just go for it. It's all new to me and there is so much to learn.
My main reason for wanting to build is because on a £500 budget I can build a PC that may cost £700 at PC World. I am also a bit of a "geek" and it's only for financial reasons that I've never been in a position to consider building a new PC. I'll be using money I won so rather than donate it all back to the casino and be left feeling depressed, I want to make good use of it and invest in a nice PC that will be able to handle anything I throw at it.
i7 or i5? I'll be using Amazon to buy the parts unless you know of a better source. I've added and deleted the i7 to my basket so many times because I keep asking myself if it's necessary. A lot of the top gaming PC's use an i5 so I feel if I go with one, I can afford to buy a nice graphics card.
My current choice is:
Intel Core i5 4670K £165
I have found that processors and graphics card are very easy to learn about as there is no shortage of reviews, but when it comes to the motherboard, I can't tell a good one from a bad one. All I can do is check to make sure it's compatible. Based on the fact that I know it's compatible and "cheap" I've added this to my basket:
Gigabyte H81M-H £38
Moving on... memory. Everything I've read has told me you don't need any more than 8GB, but what kind? I'm not sure if the "brand" matters in this case as there seems to be so many. What I can't decide is if I should get 1x8GB so I can always upgrade, or 2x4GB. There is also the question of MHz. I don't know what the benefits are but I assume higher is better. Based on a complete lack of understanding, i've added this to my basket:
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL9 XMP £63
Graphics card. I want one that can handle modern games though it doesn't have to be amazing. Something that is clearly superior to what an Xbox 360 can do, and maybe rival an Xbox One. I play games a lot, but up till now it's always been on a console, If I can have a PC that can play any game I want, then I'll be really happy. I guess I should throw casinos in with that, perhaps the ability to capture content would be nice, BigWinPictures (youtube) style. This might be more about memory than graphics card though. Based on my preferences I've added this to my basket:
Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX660 2GB DDR5 PCI-E £136
Storage: We're up to around £400 now.. I feel SSD is the way to go for an OS but now the budget is limited to £100 for all remaining parts. I will take any SSD 128 GB as I can always add another storage device when money is available. Based on this I have added this to my basket:
Kingston Technology 120GB Solid State Drive 2.5-inch V300 SATA £50
Power Supply: I've had almost no time to review the benefits so based on the fact I know it's compatible with my graphics card, i've added this to my basket:
sair VS Series 450W Power Supply Unit £32
All this comes to £482, but I still need a case. I have not done any research at all on this but I will do this tonight. My God I do hope I'm not forgetting anything here. The products I've chosen are based on limited knowledge mainly from google searches.
I've added these items to my basket and I'm awaiting a Neteller bank transfer which should hit my account tonight at midnight (5th business day!) I plan to purchase these items then as I tend not to trust myself with money. When money sits in my account I always find a way to waste it. So long as I spend money on something useful then I'm happy.
I'm going to check out the websites you mentioned now but thought I would post this first to give you an idea of where i'm at. I don't have an income at the moment as I'm studying, I have one chance to get this right so to me this is a big deal.
Just one more thing, I plan to install Linux (ubuntu 14.04). I've been running ubuntu on my laptop which is 6 years old and I have never had a problem with it. It was released last month and I believe it should support all hardware I've selected. I may install windows alongside it for programs such as photoshop which I'm not sure if I can emulate in ubuntu. I just can't bring myself to buy windows, ubuntu is so lightweight that my outdated laptop still loads within 15 seconds and never have I had anything but a smooth experience. I am so excited to try ubuntu on a nice PC.
If you feel it's appropriate perhaps you can create a new thread, it's up to you. Once again, thank you for your help, it is greatly appreciated.